I am a bit of a practical, crafty, frugal greenie who likes to garden, cook, preserve, ferment and bake bread. I live with a bunch of chooks, a flock of quails, sixteen native bee hives, a cat, a dog and a husband. Please join us in our homesteading adventures! :)

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Wow - A TEDx event near me!!!

By
Practical Frog

The amazing people at the Helensvale library decided to hold a TEDx event and I applied for a free ticket online (you couldn't get more than one) and was randomly selected to be one of the only one hundred people to attend!

The TEDx Stage at Helensvale Library

So who is TED and what is a TEDx??

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Their catch phrase is "Ideas worth spreading" and they invite speakers on topics as diverse as Artifical Intelligence, building buildings based on fractals, conservation, racism, aultruism, autism and really anything you can think of. There is a TED website where you can watch videos of the various TED talks held all over the world and there are podcasts (audio talks) of all the TED talks and then there is an hour long hosted TED talk in a radio format that examines a topic that was covered by a number of speakers (a really good one was the seven deadly sins!) I tend to listen to the TED radio hour at work as one of my jobs is simple repetition and I can listen to audio easily. Now I'm not listening to my Uni lectures, Im loving the TED talks and come home full of ideas worth sharing with my long suffering husband.

The foyer full of thing to be "making it"

So to discover that the Gold Coast Library was hosting a TEDx (Licenced and sanctioned but community run rather than run by the actual TED head office) I was thrilled and applied instantly, citing a "The danger of a single story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: as one of my favourite TED talks and received an email a few weeks later inviting me along!

My word was Amazing in the middle left of the E

The theme for this TEDx was "Making it" - and that was open to interpretation by each speaker so we heard from an Architect who uses fractals to design some of the most iconic buildings on the Gold Coast (including Q1). We heard from a Circus performer who now runs a circus school for autistic children. We heard from a Mum turned NASA astronomer. A surfer tuned anti plastic bag campaigner and a busker musician who loves his life. There was a ballerina who now teaches grit, determination and teamwork and a woman who now runs a domestic violence charity after hearing a sad story on the radio. There were also a couple of videos from other TED talks in the States. It was entertaining, enlightening, mind opening and just plain good fun!
﻿﻿﻿

This is the badge I made - Green Eggs and Ham! Just like the eggs three of my chookies lay!

With my official TEDx badge! :)

The Library had organised a bunch of things to do around the theme of "making it" and so I dutifully (and delightedly) made a badge (or two) strung "what made me, me" (mines the purple string) and made the little bot things follow lines that we drew on paper! So cool!

There was food, more food and cuppas and cake and biscuits and nibbles and live music and star gazing and really friendly staff and cool people to talk to other activities that I never got around to doing - and this was all BEFORE the TEDx started! Oh- and it was all completely free!

If there is a TEDx any where near you, (you can check on their website to see) I really encourage you to check it out and get thy bum to a seat near you!

Awesome job, Helensvale Library staff - thanks for volunteering your time and putting on an awesome event. I'm kinda hoping you'll do this at least once a month!

Comments

I love TED talks too! I had never even considered that they might hold them in Australia let along at a local City Council Library - so I was really amazed thrilled to see one on my doorstep! Its worth the trip if there is ever one in Tassie - no matter where in Tassie it is! I cant praise it highly enough, it was great to be a part of!

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